Looking Over My Shoulder

Putting Out Another Fire

In the posh Cancer Center wing,
The doctor prepares the patient
For chemo: you will experience periods
Of extreme nausea and vomiting,
You will lose weight, your hair may fall out,
You will experience deep depression,
And lose all interest in life, and have no energy.
You will both look and feel like week-old road kill,
And your life will be a living hell.
And, you may well die anyway.
He thus skillfully fills the patient with hope
Setting the stage for a full recovery.
He leaves the patient sitting in bed staring at the wall.

(...in a small windowless office down a dim hallway
On the ground floor near the back door,
The phone on the Chaplain’s desk begins to ring.)

The Downside of Being the Reverend

Beyond being just a conversation stopper,
And a guaranteed awkward moment
During party introductions,
It is my thunder stolen by God;
It preempts the mister in me.
It is compulsory acceptance grudgingly accorded,
Or conviction of irrelevance without a trial.
Do you feel the judgment? (Like, you’re not?)
Do you feel the proud and haughty separation?
Must I now prove to you my humanity
By exaggerating my faults or bragging
Of my mistakes and peccadilloes?
(Let's call that “my testimony”.)
Go ahead; use it to know me no further,
Stuff me in the great divine pigeonhole,
Elevate me in trivial ways not including salary,
Condemn me for deviations you forgive
In all others and hold me to standards
You reject for yourself. Just call me Reverend.

Late in the Day

If only God could stop by once in awhile
just to say hello, see how I’m doing:
“Bill! My man! How’s it hangin’?
Whatcha need today? Aches and pains?
I can take those—relief’s my specialty!
Need some bread? I’m your sugar-daddy!
Lonesome? Bored? Life lacking meaning?
Lemme give you something special!”

Just for a few minutes. Once in a while.
Something just for me from the great Almighty.

Only Begotten Son

IV
What makes a man a salesman
Makes him also a manipulator,
It’s the same liar's gift, and
His need to sell ran hot: she
Couldn’t hide her broken thumbs,
Her odd bruises, his final pitch
To her hard sell. The smoke and stench
Of their ongoing bellowing early
Defined marriage to me: it is anger,
It is separation, it is death.
(Somehow so the attraction of the cross,
Doesn’t it turn pain into love?
Doesn’t it bring mother and
Father and son together?) I
Stood more than once between them
As they roared, to keep him from her;
And more than once I didn’t—
(I stayed in bed, pressing the pillow
To my ears to dull the clamor of
One early morning battle while
My sister Susan screamed my name.)

Beebadobba-doobadobba
— for Loren and Ethan, 1987

“What’s the Secret Word?”
the angry king demands of the
meek supplicants who have come
seeking his favor: a small girl
dressed in an old lace curtain,
supposed to be a princess, and
a little boy wearing bear foot slippers,
pretending to be her puppy—
no excuse me, her pet lion.
“Well, what is it?” the king shouts.
“Beebadob, um beeba oh I forget!”
“Say it or I will eat your dog!”
She smiles and stamps her foot, “I can’t!”
“I’m a lion!” says the lion.
With a scowl, I scoop up the puppy
onto my lap and pretend to bite his neck,
he squeals flailing and she attacks in his defense . . .
We tumble to the floor, arms and legs
tangled in laughter and dusty lace.

They’re teenagers now and have
other kings to see, but I remember
two kids on the road to bright tomorrow
who couldn’t remember the secret word.
But I do: it’s Beebadobba-doobadobba..
I think it meant play with us now
because we can’t stay here much longer.

the cult rites of autumn

On the holy days, thousands gather in the early grey dawn
at scattered campfires around the rude temples in a hundred villages,
to feast on the roasted flesh of birds and animals,
swearing and boasting, gambling and recounting their legends,
drinking the strong native brew that enables them finally to commune
with the spirit world: they become the eagle, the jaguar, the bear,
their hearts strengthened by the spirits in oil and steel
they crowd into the open air temples to view the ritual dances that
celebrate tribal warfare and territorial chauvinism
to the primitive pounding of battle drums, rattles and horns
and the sensual ecstatic gyrations of scantily-clad village girls;
rhythmic chanting, excitement and joy reverberate within the cold stone walls,
as in the center of the great throng the youth of two villages enact symbolic battle
depicting the violent human struggle for land and possession of resources,
the best of these become heroes, are showered with great wealth and fame
and permitted to mate with the most desirable of the tribe’s females,
they receive the accolades of adoring and worshipful villagers
and their glorious exploits will be memorialized by village story tellers
for all time to come. (It all begins with a queerly costumed village fool
peering into the faces of the reclining fat elders, plucking a stringed instrument
and yelling, are you ready for some football?)